State v. Panasuk

416 Mont. 430

STATE OF MONTANA, Plaintiff and Appellee,

v.JOHN DAVID PANASUK, Defendant and Appellant.

No DA 22-0451

Submitted on Briefs February 14, 2024

Decided May 28, 2024

2024 MT 113

416 Mont. 430

___ P 3d ___

Appeal from the District Court of Roosevelt County. Fifteenth Judicial District Court, Cause No. DC-2021-24. Honorable David Cybulski, Judge.

The initial detention was unconstitutionally extended beyond what was necessary to effectuate the initial purpose of the traffic stop, under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Mont. Const. art. II, § 11, because there were no articulable facts, other than prior suspected criminal histories, which were offered as justification to expand the search into a drug investigation. Although the fact that there were known drug users in the car and the fact that defendant appeared extremely nervous were all factors to be considered, taken together they did not rise to the articulable inferences necessary to constitute particularized suspicion.

Reversed.

CHIEF JUSTICE McGRATH specially concurred, joined by JUSTICES RICE and BAKER.

For Appellant: Nancy G. Schwartz, N.G. Schwartz Law, PLLC, Huntley.

For Appellee: Austin Knudsen, Montana Attorney General, Bjorn Boyer, Assistant Attorney General, Helena; Janet Christoffersen, Roosevelt County Attorney, Wolf Point.

JUSTICE MCKINNON delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 A jury convicted John David Panasuk (Panasuk), in the Fifteenth Judicial District Court, Roosevelt County, of felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs, in violation of § 45-9-102, MCA, and misdemeanor criminal possession of drug paraphernalia, in violation of § 45-10-103, MCA. Panasuk appeals.

¶2 We reverse and restate the issue on appeal as follows:

Did the District Court err when it found law enforcement had sufficient particularized suspicion to expand the scope of a traffic stop to a drug investigation?

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

¶3 On May 19, 2021, Panasuk was pulled over by Officer Riediger (Riediger) and Lieutenant Frank Martell (Martell), Fort Peck Tribal Police Officers, for towing a trailer without trailer plates. Riediger approached Panasuk and requested his license, registration, and proof of insurance. Panasuk was initially unable to provide this information and Riediger asked him to exit his vehicle and come to his patrol car. The other occupants of the vehicle, Camilla TalksDifferent (TalksDifferent) and Dustin Hickman (Hickman), were also told to exit the vehicle. While Panasuk was with Riediger, TalksDifferent indicated she had located Panasuk’s license. Both Riediger and Martell knew TalksDifferent and her history as a drug user. However, they did not know Panasuk or Hickman. When Hickman produced a North Dakota driver’s license, Riediger contacted the Williams County Task Force in North Dakota, with whom he testified he has a good relationship, and was told Hickman had a history of being a drug dealer and user.

¶4 Riediger recalled that two weeks earlier on May 6, 2019, he was told by Special Agent Raul Figueroa (Figueroa), who was a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Officer, that Panasuk was driving a stolen vehicle. Figueroa claimed that Panasuk had admitted to selling methamphetamine and that he had methamphetamine in the vehicle. However, the substance eventually recovered from the vehicle tested negative for methamphetamine, so Figueroa told Riediger that he believed Panasuk was attempting to sell the substance on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation as methamphetamine. Panasuk was never arrested or charged in connection with this incident.

¶5 Eventually, Riediger read TalksDifferent her Miranda rights and TalksDifferent gave him consent to search her purse, where Riediger found two syringes. TalksDifferent also told Riediger there was methamphetamine in Panasuk’s vehicle. Riediger seized the vehicle and applied for a search warrant. Law enforcement recovered 6.4 grams of methamphetamine from the vehicle’s center console after searching the vehicle. Panasuk was charged with criminal possession of dangerous drugs and drug paraphernalia.

¶6 At the suppression hearing, Riediger testified that for every traffic stop involving people he does not know, he always tells the driver and other occupants to get out of the vehicle and come back to his patrol car. Riediger also always continues the investigation beyond what is required to issue a citation when he is suspicious that one or more of the occupants has a drug history, even though he has no particularized suspicion that drug activity is currently taking place. In similar fashion, Riediger always asks the occupants of the vehicle if they have any firearms, drugs, alcohol, or "anything," and he calls drug task forces and out-of-state police forces for information about the vehicle’s occupants when he suspects they have a drug history. When asked if this level of investigation was common in routine traffic stops, Officer Riediger testified that he does this "for every single traffic stop." When pressed further on whether this level of investigation was routine even for passengers, the following exchange occurred:

Q: You also call out [of] state police forces to ahh, to check a passenger?

A: Yes, I do. I have a great working relationship with the surrounding agencies and in working illegal narcotic as well.

Q: You do that for every traffic stop?

A: Yes if I suspect an individual, I do not know them, I do call around and ask.

¶7 When asked why he turned a routine traffic stop into a drug investigation, Officer Riediger stated that he had information from Figueroa that Panasuk was dealing illegal narcotics on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. However, when asked if he observed any evidence of illegal drug activity during the stop, he responded "[n]ot at the time I conducted my investigation." When asked whether his particularized suspicion was based entirely on Panasuk’s prior history and a conversation he had two weeks prior with the BIA special agent, Officer Riediger stated "[y]es."

¶8 The stop took one and one-half hours.

¶9 The District Court summarily denied Panasuk’s motion to suppress noting Panasuk’s May 6, 2021, incident with Figueroa and that, subsequently, TalksDifferent said there was methamphetamine in the vehicle.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶10 [1] "We review a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence for whether the court’s findings of fact are clearly erroneous and whether those findings were correctly applied as a matter of law." State v. Vegas, 2020 MT 121, ¶ 8, 400 Mont. 75, 463 P.3d 455 (citing State v. Ruggirello, 2008 MT 8, ¶ 15, 341 Mont. 88, 176 P.3d 252). "Lower court findings of fact are clearly erroneous if not supported by substantial evidence, the court misapprehended the effect of the evidence, or upon our independent review of the record we are firmly convinced that the court was otherwise mistaken." State v. Noli, 2023 MT 84, ¶ 24, 412 Mont. 170, 529 P.3d 813 (citing State v. Hoover, 2017 MT 236, ¶ 12, 388 Mont. 533, 402 P.3d 1224). This Court reviews de novo "[w]hether a lower court correctly interpreted and applied the pertinent law to the facts at issue …." Noli, ¶ 24.

DISCUSSION

¶11 Did the District Court err when it found that law enforcement had sufficient particularized suspicion to expand the scope of a traffic stop to a drug investigation?

¶12 [2] Generally, government searches and seizures are unlawful under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article II, Section 11, of the Montana Constitution unless conducted in accordance with a judicial warrant issued on probable cause. Noli, ¶ 26. A Terry stop is a recognized exception, which allows a law enforcement officer to stop and temporarily detain a person for investigative purposes if they have specific and articulable objective facts, based on the totality of the circumstances and including reasonable inferences, that lead to an objectively reasonable suspicion that the person is or is about to be engaged in criminal activity. Noli, ¶¶ 30–31; see also §§ 46-5-401, -403, MCA. Relevant considerations include the quantity, substance, quality, and degree of reliability of information known to the officer at the time. Noli, ¶ 30.

¶13 [3] Terry and its progeny counsel that law enforcement officers may seize and search individuals based on a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity derived from "specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion"—something less than probable cause. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1880 (1968). However, the permissible scope of any such investigative detention depends on the particular facts and circumstances of each case, but that in every case it must "last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop." Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S. Ct. 1319, 1325 (1983). Hence, a Terry stop exception to the warrant requirement permits only a "limited intrusion upon the personal security of the [subject]…[and] the investigative methods employed should be the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel" the suspicion which justified the intrusion in the first place. Royer, 460 U.S. at 500. See also, Noli, ¶ 33.

¶14 [4] Police must act with reasonable diligence to quickly confirm or dispel the particularized suspicion of criminal activity that justified the initial stop, and any subsequent expansion in duration or scope must be based on new or additional particularized suspicion developed within the lawful scope or duration of the initial stop and before it should have reasonably been completed. Noli, ¶¶ 33, 35. Thus, on a valid traffic stop, the tolerable duration of police inquiry is limited to the time necessary to address the traffic violation and any related safety concerns and authority for the seizure ends when tasks related to the traffic infraction reasonably should have been...